


lunar new year

by onlyjusticewillbringpeace



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, F/M, Multi, adult zutara, past kataang and maiko, post-war zutara, toph is poly and queer
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-24
Updated: 2020-07-25
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:40:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,829
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25496983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onlyjusticewillbringpeace/pseuds/onlyjusticewillbringpeace
Summary: Zutara endgame at lunar new year 12 years after the end of the war. Basically I wanted ATLA characters to talk about non-monogamy and engage with Black feminist theories about radical love. If anyone appears OOC, I'm chalking that up to the personal growth and maturation that healthy adults should experience over a decade. Canon divergent after the finale of Book 3.
Relationships: Katara/Zuko (Avatar), Mai/Ty Lee (Avatar), Sokka/Suki (Avatar)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 7





	1. Chapter 1

“What does it mean exactly, though, when you say ‘I love you?’” Sokka asked, leaning back from the table. They had just finished a family dinner characterized, as usual, by teasing, small bending skirmishes and inside jokes. Twelve years after Ozai’s fall, it was the beginning of a new zodiac cycle - the year of the water rat. All over the world, business ground to a halt as families united for firecrackers, feasting, lantern lighting, and offerings to the ancestors and Spirits. 

“Get ready, Sokka’s about to wax philosophical,” Toph drawled, blowing her hair out of her eyes. Zuko got up and refilled everyone’s teacup, starting with his uncle. Sokka whistled and lightly smacked the firebender’s butt as he passed by. 

“Like, I love Zuko because he’s a cranky social disaster with a heart of gold, you know?” The Water Tribe warrior draped his arm around his wife and kissed her cheek. “But I want to wake up with Suki every morning till I die. And I bet Zuko has morning breath.” Said firebender shot a half-hearted glare at his friend. “But I love you both, I do!” Sokka nodded firmly and yawned. “So how come we use one word to describe so many different things? It’s very imprecise. In engineering we would never allow one term to encompass so many different possibilities.”

Suki rolled her eyes and motioned for Aang to move the sake away from her husband. 

Toph scoffed, “Shows how much you know, Snoozles. In sign language, the motion for loving a living being is different from love of an action or object.” The metalbender was currently dating a Deaf earthbender and their translator. Ever unfazed by social norms, Toph had embraced polyamory early in adulthood. She and Tu shared a deep understanding of their element, while Qiao embodied and spoke what the Earth couldn’t communicate for Toph and Tu. 

“That is beautiful, my young friend,” Iroh patted Toph on the shoulder and sipped his tea. “And what a wonderful topic to ponder over some tea, Sokka. An old waterbending friend of mine used to say that love is like the sea. It’s a moving thing, but it takes its shape from the shore it meets, and it’s different with every shore.”

Zuko glanced at Katara out of his good eye. The warrior-healer had become his best friend over the years, through the waxing and waning of their respective romantic relationships. The crush he’d developed during the war had transformed into something neither of them had yet named. 

“That’s exactly why I’m poly, Grandpa.” Toph kicked her feet up on the table. “Since my relationships aren’t built on the idea of forever, I get to experience loads of different kinds of love. Honestly, everyone loves more than one person, they just don’t admit it. I just don’t lie to myself or my partners.”

The Avatar shot a questioning look at Katara and she nodded, seeming to understand his unspoken request. “Some people are monogamous, though, Toph. I think problems show up when partners aren’t clear about their needs or when the needs don’t complement each other.”

Katara smiled wryly, the old pain of her first relationship finally replaced by acceptance. “Monogamy is a problem when we don’t question it. When we expect that one person can be our everything, for all time. When we don’t understand that people change.” She rubbed her elbow and gazed around the table at the people she loved most in the world. “You all saw how Aang and I hurt each other even though we love each other. We had to learn that caring for the other person and wanting them to be happy doesn’t automatically mean a happy ending.” Aang’s eyes met hers with fierce affection. “We were trying to be way too much for each other, and what we needed to do for ourselves conflicted with what the other person needed.”

“I’m sorry to say it took me years to really hear what Guru Pathik tried to tell me,” the Avatar said gravely, leaning his chin into his hand. “I had to let go of my attachments, illusions, judgments and expectations of Katara in order to love her - and all of you, and the world. Sokka’s right. We really do need to clarify the different types of love. I mixed up feelings of friend- and family- love with partner-love.”

“You’re not the first, and you won’t be the last,” Iroh remarked kindly. “Mistakes are how we learn, Avatar. And the love between you and Master Katara was not wasted, precisely because you both learned so much. Many people want love to be like firewine, giving them immediate and unending pleasure. They want to do nothing, just passively receive the good feeling. Genuine love is rarely an emotional space where needs are instantly gratified. Dreaming that love will save us, solve all our problems or provide a steady state of bliss or security only keeps us stuck in wishful fantasy, undermining the real power of the love -- which is to transform us. You may have entered your relationship with understandably naive expectations, given your age, but you allowed love to transform you for the better.” 

Katara and Aang both seemed moved, blue and grey eyes glistening in the rosy glow of red lanterns. Zuko closed his own, feeling a knot in his heart ease. His uncle’s wisdom cast his relationship with Mai into a softer light, that of two teenagers doing their best. The fact that they hadn’t been good for each other didn’t make him - or her - a failure. Zuko was genuinely happy that Mai and Ty Lee had each other now. He opened his eyes when he heard Katara get up and start clearing the table. “Let me help,” the firebender blurted as he rose. Her answering smile was totally worth Toph’s snicker at his expense. 

As soon as the two had disappeared into the kitchen, Toph planted her hands on the table. “This is our chance. We’re getting those dweebs together tonight.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bryke is great at world-building and creating characters, but the forced hetero pairings at the end + the comics are not my jam. I adore Korra as a character, but the fact that Toph supports the prison industrial complex and a violent police force (pointed out by my friend @jaybeekeeper on Instagram) + Katara spending her whole life waiting on the Avatar and mothering others + Aang as an absent father who favored Tenzin + the forced Makorra nonsense = big drawbacks to Bryke's canon. I just don't see marrying one's childhood crush (Kataang and Maiko) as being the best outcome for everyone's personal growth and self-actualization. (Korrasami endgame is a gift from the Goddess, of course.) Basically I love the universe Bryke created and am going to happily rewrite their storylines to support my anti-racist, pro-LGBTQIA+, feminist agenda :)
> 
> Paraphrased quotes in this chapter:
> 
> “Love is like the sea. It's a moving thing, but still and all, it takes its shape from the shore it meets, and it's different with every shore.”  
> \- Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God
> 
> “Genuine love is rarely an emotional space where needs are instantly gratified. To know love we have to invest time and commitment...'dreaming that love will save us, solve all our problems or provide a steady state of bliss or security only keeps us stuck in wishful fantasy, undermining the real power of the love -- which is to transform us.' Many people want love to function like a drug, giving them an immediate and sustained high. They want to do nothing, just passively receive the good feeling.”  
> \- bell hooks
> 
> “Another [interviewee] told me that because her relationships aren't built on false ideas about exclusivity forever, she feels more cherished by her partners; she said, "There is an investment in what we have rather than what we should have.”  
> \- Tristan Taormino, Opening Up: A Guide to Creating and Sustaining Open Relationships
> 
> “This is the myth of finding "the One": the one partner you're "meant" to be with, your soul mate, your Prince Charming, the girl of your dreams. Nonmonogamous folks reject this myth and acknowledge that no one person can be, or should be expected to be, everything for another.”  
> \- Tristan Taormino, Opening Up: A Guide to Creating and Sustaining Open Relationships
> 
> “Honestly, everyone loves more than one person and people often lie about that. We’re just not lying about it’…”  
> \- Tristan Taormino, Opening Up: A Guide to Creating and Sustaining Open Relationships
> 
> Check out different cultures' definitions of love, including the movements in sign language that I referenced:  
> https://www.fluentin3months.com/words-for-love/


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> dishwashing!Zutara

“You never answered Sokka’s question,” Katara remarked, gracefully cleaning plates with her waterbending. Zuko was drying and putting away the dishes. 

“About love?” The prince asked, heart beating faster. He focused on not dropping the platter in his hands. 

“Mhm. What does the word mean to you?” 

Zuko bit his lip. He didn’t notice Katara’s gaze cut quickly to him before returning to the dishes. “Uh, I didn’t answer because - I don’t think I understand love very well. I mean, I thought my father was capable of love for sixteen years - ” 

The waterbender had her hands on his shoulders before he could finish his sentence. “That was because he abused you, Zuko. You may not feel confident in your understanding of love, but you practice it. Love is an action, never simply a feeling. Your actions are so full of love - for your people, for your family, and your friends. You are an incredibly loving person, and that is why you are a thousand times the man your father was.”

Zuko blinked and caught his breath, skin tingling at Katara’s closeness. Once again, he was struck by the waterbender’s passionate loyalty to her chosen family. He had been on the receiving end of that mama bear protectiveness, and it still startled him sometimes to be inside her circle of care. He silently thanked Agni, Tui and La that this magnificent woman had forgiven him twice, and pulled her into a hug. 

“Katara, I’m not very good at - words, and expressing myself? And ‘thank you’ doesn’t seem like - enough, for everything I’m feeling. But thank you.” He bowed his head in gratitude to all the ancestors and Spirits bearing invisible witness to the inter-generational healing that was his and Katara’s relationship. The son of a conqueror and survivor of genocide, opposite elements, born enemies, who had worked for reconciliation.

Katara nuzzled her nose in his chest and laid a gentle, deliberate kiss on his heart. Zuko decided he would replay the memory of that kiss whenever nightmares tore him out of bed. 

“You deserve care and support, Zuko. We all do. And you give it back to us, your family - you practice love - even if you don’t feel like you understand it.” 

Zuko was raining kisses on the top of her head before he realized he was doing it. He stopped when his conscious brain screeched at him to abort mission before he overstepped the boundaries of friendship. He stepped back and rubbed his hand on the back of his neck, looking away. 

“I definitely learned that from you, though. And Aang! And Uncle, and Sokka, and everyone.” He coughed. “Both you and Aang - you lost your people. My childhood was a garbage fire, yes, but I was rich. But you two - even after tragedy, you didn’t - um, you still managed to be kind. And hopeful, and helpful. So. Oh and Uncle lost Lu Ten but he still put up with my, uh, bullshit? So like, you all showed me. That it’s a choice. To do good things even if you’ve gone through bad things. Er, and maybe I think - that’s love. Or part of it.”

Hands the color of earth pulled Zuko’s head down to touch noses in kunik, a traditional Water Tribe show of affection. Zuko savored the shared breath and ordered himself not to obey the impulse to press closer. Aang’s bad habit of non-consensual surprise kisses had been a boundary violation, he knew. Katara had shared with him how Water Tribe gender norms, her compassion for Aang’s trauma, and her own tendency to over-function had mixed an unhealthy cocktail of obligation and guilt. It had taken years for the master waterbender to claim her pleasure, bodily autonomy, and even the right to choose her own life-path separate from the desires of those around her. Zuko called on all the firebender control exercises of his training and held his longing in check.

“So are you saying you love me, Zuko?” There was an interesting light in Katara’s eyes when she pulled away. Zuko blinked rapidly. Well, he had always been a terrible liar. 

“Yes,” he managed to rasp. “A lot a lot? Very much and also like I love all of, our, family?” His conscious mind tried to do damage control. 

Katara grinned and kissed his cheek. “Well I love you too, you big goof. I don’t know how we were ever intimidated by you in the war. You’re just an awkward turtleduck.” 

Zuko’s inherited conditioning about masculinity had long ago given way to the teachings of his uncle, Aang’s example, and the guidance of his mother. And his face was the color of his robes, so he really couldn’t argue with Katara’s assessment. At least awkward was better than evil. 

“Uh, shall we finish the dishes? I know Aang doesn’t wanna miss the dancing,” he offered, to avoid combusting from embarrassment. 

“Sure, turtleduck.” Katara hip-checked him gently and called water to her will.

**Author's Note:**

> "Love is an action, never simply a feeling."  
> \- bell hooks


End file.
